Day 2 – Bodhi Season 2017 – Ying and Yang

Today, December 19, is day 2 of 7 of the Lunar Bodhi Season of 2017, which began December 18 with the 12th New moon of 2017.

The 2nd of the Bodhisattvas to go into the world providing guidance is the Bodhisattva of Yin and Yang. All phenomenon happens where at least two opposing forces meet, such as a beach where the ocean meets the land; where predator meets prey, where rubber hits the road, effort meets goal. Because of this, we have brains that are duality machines, ceaselessly judging things as high/low, hot/cold, good/bad, big/small, love/hate. All things exist with two sides of the coin – a coin cannot have one side.

Duality? But what about all that One crap? Of course the Infinity isn’t just a 100% homogeneous mass. Things not only “happen”, but in fact are constantly changing- It is a kaleidoscope of constant change. Remember, Dukkha stems from the fact in our attempts to simplify things, we chronically attempt to isolate phenomena from the Infinity. This contradiction of the One Infinity and the phenomena within the One Infinity resulting from Yin and Yang are in fact the other meaning for duality. That is, we exist in a Universe of phenomena we deal with in our daily lives, yet all phenomena exists inseparable from the One Infinity.

The Yin and Yang is central to Judo and Aikido, in the form of the tori and the uke, the one practicing the technique and the one offering the resistance, respectively. Imagine your judo progress if you had no one to practice with, or your skill with SQL, R, or C# if you didn’t work on real projects. No uke and no real projects makes us, as the joke goes, “legends in our own mind” – crackpots. Like the Samurai in perpetual training, combining kata (practice) and randori (full-contact fighting), our activity must be focused on following the path to perfection. That is, we face the affairs of our daily lives as training, blending in as smoothly as we can in these opposing forces of Yin and Yang in which we are embedded.

So here are the first two lines of the “Great Blue Heron Sutra”, given to me by Rubber Ducky:

[1] Infinity is all that is real, it is indivisible, the whole is greater than the sum of its parts.
[2] Dukkha results from the interference from our intent to treat Phenomena as if it is separate from the Infinity. We remove Dukkha by following the path towards perfectly blending in with the Universe with 100% acceptance of what Is.

Keep Calm, Merry On!
Reverend Dukkha Hanamoku
Ordained Zen Priest of the Order of the Common Area Ponds